ABOUT OUR COMPANY
ServersAndParts LLC is located in Lawrenceville
Georgia USA (a few miles north of Atlanta),
where the company has been designing and
implementing corporate data communication
networks since 1995. Since 2003, ServersAndParts
has also been integrating, installing and
supporting custom computer server systems for
corporate clients worldwide. Over the past
several years, ServersAndParts has
shipped/installed and supported more than a
thousand server systems. The company uses only
the highest-quality components in its hardware
integration, and the failure rate on these
powerful high-reliability servers is less than
1%.

Q: WHAT IS A BAREBONE SERVER?

A barebone server is a
basic system including all necessary components
except CPU, memory, and disk drive(s). Since
these components are relatively expensive, and
you can save money by purchasing only the
components you need for your application,
barebone servers are economical custom
solutions.

Supermicro barebone servers and workstations are
available in literally hundreds of rack-mount
and tower models, so you can select the exact
fit for your application.

Q: WHICH CPU, MEMORY, AND
DISK-DRIVES DO I NEED FOR MY BAREBONE SERVER?

The server specifications
pages list compatible components for each
system. For example, The Supermicro 6017-NTF 1U
server supports Intel E5-2600-series
processors up to 130W, up to 512GB DDR3ECC/REG
memory, and all standard 3.5" SAS/SATA disk
drives. You can easily choose compatible
components with our System Configurators at
www.serversandparts.com

Q: WILL YOU HELP ME CHOOSE THE BEST
COMPONENTS AND RAID FOR MY SERVER?

Yes, ServersAndParts will
be happy to help. If you'll email
sales@serversandparts.com
and
describe your server application (web server,
file server, etc), how many simultaneous users
the server needs to support, and whether or not
you want RAID speed/redundancy, we'll recommend
compatible components with OS software for your
system.

Q: WILL YOU ASSEMBLE AND TEST A BAREBONE
SERVER FOR ME?

Yes, as shown on the System Configurators at
www.serversandparts.com, our Microsoft and
Cisco-certified techs will professionally
assemble and test your server prior to shipment.
We install RAID and network cards; and if you
purchase the WINDOWS operating system software
from ServersAndParts, or if you want an
open-source LINUX, we can also install the OS
with drivers so the server is 'plug-n-play' and
ready-to-go when you receive the shipment.

__________________________________________

TECH-TIP: CHANGE BIOS TO
SATA AHCI OR RAID WITHOUT REINSTALLING WINDOWS
Following is a link to all the info and a
Microsoft FixIt Tool that will enable an AHCI
driver so you can change your SATA BIOS settings
without getting the "Inaccessible Boot Device"
error: KB922976

TECH-TIP: WESTERN
DIGITAL WD10EARS,
WD15EARS, WD20EARS
Western Digital's new WDxxEARS drives use
default 4K sectors to provide 10% more usable
storage, but LINUX and WINDOWS XP users will
need to reformat for compatibility, or install a
jumper to disable the new feature; here's a link
to more info:
http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8113

TECH-TIP: WINDOWS 7 ICH10R RAID DRIVERS
If you get the error "Windows
cannot be installed to this disk"
while installing Windows 7 with ICH10R RAID
drivers, insert the Windows Installer CD and
click REFRESH. This problem occurs when the
Windows Installer CD is removed and a 3rd-party
CD is inserted to load additional drivers (like
ICH10R RAID). In this case, Windows installation
can't continue until the Windows CD is
re-mounted and REFRESHED. Supermicro's support
website has lots of useful info too; here's a
link to OS Compatibility Charts:
http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/os.cfm

TECH-TIP: AOC-SAS2-RAID5-KEY FOR
SUPERMICRO
7046/6016/5016
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2008/iMR/Firmware
Download the file USB.zip from the FTP folder,
then unzip the USB.zip contents to the root path
of a bootable USB flash drive. Follow the
instructions in the iMRflash doc to flash the
iMR firmware.

Note, after CTRL-H to enter the RAID BIOS
configuration, all the hard disks will revert to
JBOD disks. To set the drives for RAID, goto to
Drives, select a hard drive, check the
Property radio
button, and click Go.
Click the radio button to make the disk
Unconfigured Good,
and available for the configuration wizard.
Configure each disk you want to use for RAID.

TECH-TIP: NEW SUPERMICRO
QUICK-RELEASE RAILS
Standard 2U MCP-290-00053-0N
Rail-Kits are designed for a 26.5" ~ 36.4" depth
square-hole rack. For round-hole racks, the
standard rail will need to add 2x adapters at
the front and rear, which are 0.8" each. If the
combined length of the adapters and the standard
rails is longer than your rack, use the optional
Short Rail-Kit MCP-290-00058-0N, 19" ~ 26.6".

TECH-TIP: SAS BACKPLANES
Although only SATA disk drives are often listed
as Key
Features,
several Supermicro SuperServer backplanes
support SAS hard drives too. For example, we can
add a SAS RAID controller card/cable to a
standard 7036A-T chassis and support up to 4
hi-speed SAS hard drives. Check with our
tech-department for more details.

TECH-TIP: REDUNDANT POWER-SUPPLIES
If you want to run a Supermicro redundant-power
server with a only a single-supply (temporarily)
during configuration or testing, remove the
unused hot-swap power-supply. If you leave both
power-supplies connected to the server, but only
plug one of the supplies into the AC wall-power,
the server will emit a continuous beeping noise
to let you know one of the power-supplies is not
working. Yes, we've received several calls about
this :-)

TECH-TIP: REMOTE CTRL/ALT/DEL
If you're running Microsoft Terminal
Server/Remote Desktop Client for remote
management, you can use the key-combination
CTRL/ALT/END to implement a remote CTRL/ALT/DEL
command.

TECH-TIP: UIO INFINIBANDSupermicro's AOC-UIBQ-M1
and AOC-UIBQ-M2Infiniband Adapters are
low-profile half-length cards, each with a UIO
connector and a PCIe interface. Both cards are
compatible with Supermicro's UIO expansion slots
(not PCIe slots).

TECH-TIP: MULTI-NODE
OPTICAL DRIVESSupermicro multi-node
platforms like the 6016TT and 6026TT
SuperServers are great for combining multiple
systems in a single chassis, but you'll probably
need USB Flash drive, an external USB optical
drive, or IPMI to load the OS.